The story has been referenced here on Cryptomundo on more than a few occasions.

The following is posted on the internet on several different message forums:

Dateline: January 1976 shooting of two supposed bigfoot and their burial on the Elm Creek in the Texas Panhandle by a man identified as “Bugs” and two of his hunting friends.

On a recent Art Bell broadcast a former marine and Texas farmer identified as Bugs claims that he and two other Viet Nam veteran friends shot and killed two 6 toed bigfoot on the Elm Creek while hunting for pelts to sell for profit at night with spotlights and rifles, subsequently burying the two bigfoot for fear of murder charges because the creatures looked so humanlike. They swore each other to secrecy. Bugs recently provided Bell with a map to the location where the burial occurred. Bugs went into great detail of the creatures descriptions, describing the male as nearly 8 foot tall, and 350 pounds and the female less in height and 30 pounds or so lighter. Longtime bigfoot researcher Robert Morgan helped Art Bell interview Bugs. Bugs thought Morgan would know that the bigfoot have “six toes”, evidently thinking all bigfoot have six toes. Bugs seemed to have little knowledge of other bigfoot evidence in North America.

Living, hunting and farming in western Kansas myself at that time period and also having relatives in the Texas Panhandle, I am familiar with pelt prices at that time period in the area, the said location and also the soils present. All these items and Bugs stories regarding these items are perfect. Bugs himself in the entire interview process seemed and sounded completely sincere, going into fine detail. Bugs claims that now at age 56 he feels guilty and wants to get this incident off his chest. Bugs also claims fear that these local bigfoot still remember his deed and have it in for him. Bigfoot researcher Robert Morgan was in on the interview of Bugs with Art Bell, and he cultured Bugs fears that the bigfoot remember his deed and that “Bugs now needs to make friends with them with Morgan’s help.”

My conclusion is that Bugs probably does farm and live in the said area of the Texas Panhandle and that the way he related the story is seemingly in complete sincerity. I also conclude from past experience that some people can spin wild detailed and completely detailed yarns with a straight face and seemingly completely sincere. I also conclude that the Texas Panhandle is part of the Bible Belt and giants with 6 toes are included in Bible accounts. I further conclude that an 8 foot bigfoot male, would likely weigh much more than 350 pounds if well muscled as described by bugs. I have also never seen any physical evidence in the form of footprints come from that area in spite of nice soft farm soils for making tracks in for all these many years that farmers have been tilling the soil there. I for one am not going to go to the Elm Creek area of Texas to dig 4 to 5 foot deep for 25 year old bones of a hairy six toed goliath and his female counterpart, but perhaps someone might.

I urge everyone to go to www.artbell.com and listen themselves to Bugs’ story in the archive section. If Bugs is making the whole thing up, he did a really good job of it, except for the few oddities in his descriptions. The story will likely stay with us for awhile, so researchers should probably be informed on it. I still have never seen anything of concrete evidence east of the Rockies for all these years of only sightings from there, while from the western states I have seen hundreds of pieces of very consistent physical evidence.Keith Foster

Bugs appeared on the air with Art Bell on several occasions. I spoke with Robert W. Morgan about the incident and he believed that Bugs was telling the truth.

June 5, 2001, Art Bell interviewed veteran Bigfoot researcher Robert W. Morgan. In the first half of the show, the two are joined by a hunter identified under the name “Bugs” who recounted his experience shooting two Bigfoot over 30 years ago in Texas. Bugs, along with two other hunters, encountered two 7-8 ft. tall creatures, covered in reddish brown hair, that they shot at numerous times, thinking they were bears. After the creatures were killed they discovered they had shot one female and one male. I had “never seen nothing on this Earth that looked like them,” said Bugs, who described the pair as being a cross between human and ape. Not wanting to be held responsible for the shootings, the hunters decided to cover-up the incident by burying the creatures.

“Everything I’ve heard Bugs say has the ring of truth, ” said Morgan who offered further analysis of the creatures: Bigfoot are intelligent, sometimes leave “gifts” such as turkey feathers for humans and their species could considered as the ancestor of homo sapiens.Coast to Coast AM

During the last hour, “Bugs,” a previous guest of Art’s, phoned in to go over his account of shooting and burying two Bigfoot back in the 1970’s, in the Texas Panhandle, while Standing reacted. The creatures, which Bugs and a fellow hunter initially thought were bears, had reddish-brown hair, nose and eyes similar to humans, and the female had breasts. He estimated the male was 8½ ft. tall and weighed around 500 lbs.Coast to Coast AM

Tonight, on the Art Bell: Somewhere in Time show, it returns to 4/16/96 for an Open Lines show dealing with Bigfoot and the story of a hunter who claimed to kill two of the creatures.

I believe that this was the first time that Art heard the story from Bugs.

About Craig WoolheaterCo-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.

Agreed. I don’t really buy his story but it is definitely very interesting and one I’ve listened to more than once. For most of it, he does indeed seem very sincere but a few of the things he said didn’t seem to add up to me.

And as said earlier, all someone needs to do is go and dig where Bugs marked his map and see. Never know, maybe he was telling the truth.

I have learned from experience that I’m not good at evaluating people’s truthfulness, so I won’t offer an opinion on Bugs. I do wonder how he gave a seemingly confident weight estimate (350 and 320 lbs for male and female, respectively, although his recollection seems to have changed, from what he told Bell about 500 lbs.)

That aside, though, a report of a shooting, absent physical evidence, is no different from a sighting report. The key thing in this place is the map to burial site – Texas bigfoot researchers should be able to prove or disprove the claim.

I am not aware of giants with six toes in the Bible. ‘Giants’ yes, about the size of the late Andre the Giant, not the giants of myth and legend. Probably pituitary giants, although it seemed to run in one family, that of a guy named Anak. Six toes? I have no recollection of reading that.FWIW.

Unless there are specific landmarks, say at the base of a specific tree, finding those bones, if they have survived, is going to be extremely difficult to unlikely.

the rebroadcast of this show can be seen/heard on youtube… its been around for months..

(part 1/12)

video info:

“In a rebroadcast from June 5, 2001, Art Bell interviewed veteran Bigfoot researcher Robert W. Morgan. In the first half of the show, the two are joined by a hunter identified under the name “Bugs” who recounted his experience shooting two Bigfoot over 30 years ago in Texas. Bugs, along with two other hunters, encountered two 7-8 ft. tall creatures, covered in reddish brown hair, that they shot at numerous times, thinking they were bears. After the creatures were killed they discovered they had shot one female and one male. I had “never seen nothing on this Earth that looked like them,” said Bugs, who described the pair as being a cross between human and ape. Not wanting to be held responsible for the shootings, the hunters decided to cover-up the incident by burying the creatures.”

Finding them probably depends whether the area has flooded, been made into a shopping mall, etc. If there’s been no major change, trees, while much larger, are likely be be the same. An event as singluar as this should be burned into the brain of Bugs and company. With the map to guide them, I would think (although I’m a novice at this sort of thing) that is should not be too difficult. Zaitsev, the sniper whose story was dramatized in the film Enemy at the Gates, was able to walk the ground in a much changed Stalingrad 50 years later and locate the vantage points and hiding places used by himself and his German adversary.

I’m continually amazed by the intellectual arrogance of the PNW “experts”. The “Shadow People” are reported frequently on the plains, cultivated fields and forests of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. Protein is where you find it.

Is it possible more than one species of squatch exists, many habituators say there are several. Those who know, are very protective of their “critters”, with good reason.

Unfortunately the “pro-kill without remorse” mentality evidenced by “Bugs” is alive and well in the Southwest. If Native American lore is accurate, Bugs and those like him are marked men. JMHO

Is there a map? I’ll go and look…. I have nothing better to do for a week next summer! It’ll only take a bit of ground radar to look for anomolies and then dig…. Hopefully the ground isn’t as acidic as here, where the bones and such disappear very fast and only powder is left., No radar would find that!